


Analyzing 'You Breathe, You Die' - Jan 16

by Inky_moro



Series: Anno Uno Scribere [64]
Category: Unus Annus - Fandom
Genre: Anno Uno Scribere, Memento mori, Unus Annus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28803972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_moro/pseuds/Inky_moro
Summary: *Taken directly from my translated copy of The Art of War
Series: Anno Uno Scribere [64]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016157
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Analyzing 'You Breathe, You Die' - Jan 16

You know it’s actually kind of true, you breathe, you die. I don’t know all the science behind it but oxygen, the very thing we carbon based life forms need to survive, in its purest form is actually quite deadly.  
It can harm your lungs and ruin your eyesight and the moral of the story is never breathe pure oxygen.   
-The air we breathe is only 20% oxygen.

Anyway  
The dangers of underestimating yourself or your opponent.   
do do do do -do!

It is never good to be underprepared, and one of the ways to be underprepared is to not know/learn everything you can about whatever situation you find yourself in. As Sun Tzu says in The Art of War ‘if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’*

Mark failed the breathing competition because he underestimated Ethan. Mark didn’t know what Ethan was really capable of, and was therefore unable to prevent his defeat at Ethan’s hands. (or should I say, Ethan’s lungs) He also misjudged the situation, he told Ethan that he was going to delete PEEN. This action, this revealing of a supposed future in which PEEN no longer existed, motivated Ethan to stop goofing around and take the competition seriously.

Meanwhile..  
Mark is confident in his victory against Ethan. He has won 2/3 rounds of the breathing competition thus far, so statistically he will win the game even if Ethan wins one more round. He thinks back to when they filmed ‘Learning to Breathe Underwater’, where he held his breath for 3 minutes and Ethan only held his breath for 1 minute and.. 17 seconds? He can do this. Victory is assured. Bye bye PEEN.   
He relaxes slightly, doesn’t focus as much on the competition, instead thinking of how great it will feel to win once again. He is distracted, and his brainpower is being used up dreaming of deleting PEEN. He moves around, shifts a little bit in his chair. He stares into the determined eyes of Ethan Nestor.

He loses.  
But it’s just the singular round, he will be fine. They are neck and neck, so whoever wins this next round wins the game. Whoever being him of course, he’s going to win, it’s been statistically proven. Mark doesn’t see Ethan as a threat, even though there is a 33% chance that he will win- at least according to Mark’s statistics. He doesn’t focus, he doesn’t double down and give the competition his all.

Ethan however, is focused.   
He isn’t going to lose PEEN, that he knows for certain. He will not let that happen. He’s won two rounds, he can win one more. To hell with Mark’s statistics! Did Mark even take statistics? That doesn’t matter. What does matter is not losing PEEN. Think, think, think, what was it that Mark said by the pool? Every muscle tense takes up oxygen, was that it? He can’t move around anymore then. He can’t get up and spin around with his chair- he has to focus.   
So Ethan Nestor takes a deep breath in.  
He puts the tape over his mouth.  
About a minute later, he wins.

He gets to delete a video from Mark’s channel- he jokingly says that he’ll delete Five Nights at Freddy’s, part 1 as he scrolls through the most popular videos. His eye catches something he doesn’t immediately recognize, so he clicks on it to see what it is.. He tells Mark he has a contender. He continues scrolling, spies ‘I want to believe’. He mentions it to Mark. He debates for a second, before going with the first contender- which had been demonetized.

He’s nice like that.

Mark’s mistake was giving Ethan something to fight for, something to win for.  
He didn’t take the competition seriously, he underestimated Ethan.  
And so he lost.

**Author's Note:**

> *Taken directly from my translated copy of The Art of War


End file.
